Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, starting with Amendment 62, it was one of those amendment where I proved, once again, to myself that I could not be in two places at once and came in halfway through last time. It is one of those amendments where I am unhappy about the fact that it needed to be moved. It is a group of lobbies, effectively, coming together saying the system does not work and that we have not got round to fixing it. I know the Minister will tell me, when she replies, that there is a review looking into special educational needs at the moment, but will she take on board and feed back that we actually have a postcode lottery about where there is support and where there is not? There is no arguing about this: it just is. If it were possible to transform the circumstances from the good authorities to the bad ones, that would be fine and we would have much less of a problem.

Something else that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has picked up on is that, unless people have an EHC plan, the chances of their getting help are so much more reduced. When we passed the Children and Families Act 2014, we assumed there would be a gradated approach of support and the EHC plans would be reduced compared with the number of statements. This has not happened, because we have identified more problems. There was a gross underidentification—this much we do know—probably not in these particular groups because most people can spot if someone cannot hear or see, but with other problems it is more difficult. Without an EHC plan, it is a struggle, and if people fall behind, they have higher needs and they go to the lawyers. One thing that should be borne in mind with this amendment is that we are in an environment where one of the greatest growth departments in the legal profession is people dealing with the educational system to get support. That says, clearer than anything else I can think of, that there has been a failure. I was on the Committee of that Bill and I did not see it coming, but it has happened.

We need some indication of how better allocation of support will come. This is not a big argument about “Are they or aren’t they?” or whether we need a heavy diagnosis of things such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit disorder or the rest of them. It is something that is comparatively easy to spot, so I would hope we can get some idea what the Government’s thinking is. I appreciate that the review is still going on, but if we can get some kind of idea of what they are thinking about on these conditions, it should take some of the pressure off.

My noble friend Lady Brinton’s amendment, once again, goes back to the Children and Families Act 2014 and is something of a no-brainer in my opinion. If someone with medical training such as a doctor—a specialist doctor, often—says “Don’t do it: it will be detrimental to their health or difficult” and then someone in the Department for Education says, “But we want to do something else”, I am sorry, but health comes first. Children cannot learn if they are unhealthy, or if they are struggling with their health or if they are worried about it. That much we have proven. It is essential that we bring into the Bill some way to give greater clarification that, when a medical need is identified, the school or education environment must react correctly—that is agreeing with it unless they have very good grounds. If noble Lords can think of some examples of where this would happen, or where a school might have that capacity, I am all ears.

On the general area of mental health, having talked about some of the other issues here in special educational needs et cetera, we know that stress enhances mental health conditions. Let us face it: schools now are expected to pass more, and Governments of all sides have encouraged that. Anybody struggling with that process is immediately under stress, so it is not that surprising if we are discovering that many more stresses or mental health conditions—and we do spot them now. We are looking for them and if you look for things, you find them.

If you want to find an environment where people have incredibly low attainment and very high mental health needs, look into a prison system: the scholars of the group will have left school at 14 and virtually none will have secondary education. That is often because they cannot cope with it or are not succeeding, or it may be because of their background. I might be going to the worst-case scenario early, but it hones minds on to these areas. We need to get in and spot this.

If some financial support is found here or from government generally, that may well help with money in the long term, because departments should work together. They find it incredibly difficult to do it because there are Chinese walls. Everybody says, “We’re going to have a committee that works together.” Two Ministers meet once in a blue moon, then forget about it and find another priority so as to avoid it; that is the experience many Ministers have described to me, not just in education or health. If we do not get some better way of giving some active support, we are going to miss these problems and they will become acute later on.

I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, is going to say on this group, but these issues are ongoing. I would hope, on Amendment 107, that the Minister will simply tell us how it is to be better done. I understand that the others have a more complicated web of interaction, but I hope that we will get some positive guidance—or see the way that the Government’s minds are working, or were at least working a few weeks ago.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first opportunity at the Dispatch Box after the vote we took last week on changing the hours of the House of Lords. I am so glad to see that all those people who were so clear about staying after the dinner break are here—not.

Good mental health is fundamental to be able to thrive in life. I spoke in Committee about the experience of growing up with a dearly loved mother who suffered so wretchedly from mental illness and the limiting effects it had upon her quality of life. She was extremely proud of my achievements but could never fully engage in them, due to the debilitating effects of her condition.

Current research shows that 50% of mental health problems are established by the age of 14 and that 75% are established by the age of 24. Young people in the UK today are dealing with high levels of stress, due to a variety of issues. The DfE’s annual report State of the Nation 2021 noted that reductions in average levels of well-being occurred most clearly in February 2021, when schools were closed to the majority of children, before recovering towards the end of the academic year.

In this context, we have therefore introduced two amendments. First, Amendment 114 would compel the Secretary of State, whoever he or she may be, to consult on the current provision in place to support children’s mental health and well-being in schools. Our second amendment, Amendment 115, would compel the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on: how the mental health of children in academies and maintained schools in England affects, and is affected by, their schooling; actions being taken by schools to improve pupil mental health; and the extent to which schools are working with local National Health Service and voluntary and community sector providers, as noted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.

I have previously drawn your Lordships’ attention to the fact that mental health is not mentioned in the Bill. We have debated over many days and have made—people who have been here for years tell me—gigantic changes to this Bill by comparison. We have debated school structures, while one in six of those aged between six and 16 have a probable mental health issue. This is a priority area for Labour. We would guarantee mental health treatment for all who need it within a month and hire at least 8,500 new mental health professionals. But a creaking National Health Service cannot do this alone.

The focus should be on prevention. Schools play a vital role in this area with a maintenance of general welfare and resilience throughout a child’s time in education, rather than acting only at times of crisis when it is too late. It is an acute crisis, and recognising that is an essential tool to learning and welfare. We need to intimately understand the drivers of the problem and give targeted support to tackle it. Both Labour amendments are urgently needed.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I will start by responding to Amendment 62 and thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for this amendment. As he said, we have previously discussed these issues in Committee. As he knows, local authorities have existing duties to identify children and young people in their area who have special educational needs or disabilities—SEND—and to work with other agencies to keep under review the adequacy of provision available to meet their needs. The department supports local authorities in doing so.

I acknowledge the points the noble Lord made, but they are best addressed by our wider reforms to the SEND system. I reiterate that high needs funding is increasing by £1 billion in the current financial year to a total of £9.1 billion. Local authorities have flexibility in how this funding is used, particularly and including to support those with sensory impairments. Separately, pupils with additional needs also attract additional funding through the schools national funding formula, which includes proxy factors for SEND. I reassure him that this will continue under the direct national funding formula. This additional needs funding equates to £6.6 billion in 2022-23 and is not dependent on whether a child has an education, health and care plan. I take the noble Lord’s point about those who may have sensory needs not having education, health and care plans, but there is also additional needs funding in place that is not dependent on those plans being in place.

As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referenced, the Government recently published their SEND and alternative provision Green Paper, setting out ambitious proposals to improve the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND. He referred to a postcode lottery, and he will know that the Green Paper includes a proposal to introduce national standards for how needs should be identified, assessed and reviewed, as well as the support that should be available for children and young people with SEND, including those with sensory impairments. That is currently out for consultation until 22 July, and we do not want to pre-empt the response.

The noble Lord talked about the litigiousness of the current system, and I agree with him. One of the aims of our reforms is to address that by having clear expectations across the country for parents and children. We hope to reduce that side of the system and take things forward in a more collaborative way.

Turning to Amendment 63, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their amendment on statutory funding for mental health support in schools. Schools can play a vital role in supporting young people’s mental health. However, as we have discussed previously, tackling this issue cannot be the responsibility of schools alone, and it is not a school’s job to provide specific or specialist treatment interventions.